"I'd like to find out for myself," Laura told him.
Mark sat for a moment with his hand cradling his chin, his eyes lost in thought. Then he looked at Rose, and she nodded. He stood up, went to the telephone, and opened a battered little book of phone numbers. Then he dialed and waited. "She's not home," he said after ten rings. "She lives in a house outside Ann Arbor." He checked his Mickey Mouse watch. "She doesn't usually keep late nights… or she didn't used to." He put the phone down, waited about fifteen minutes, and then tried the number again. "No answer," he reported.
"Are you sure she's still living there?"
"She was there back in September. She called to tell me about the classes she was teaching." Mark made himself a cup of tea as Rose and Laura talked, and then he tried the number a third time. Again no answer. "Bummer," Mark said. "She's not a night owl, that's for sure."
Toward midnight Mark dialed the number once more. It rang and rang, and went unanswered.
"Take me to her," Laura said.
"Uh-uh. No can do."
"Why not? If we left in the morning we could be back by Monday. We could take my car."
"To Michigan? Man, that's a long trip!"
Laura opened her purse and brought out her checkbook. Her hands were trembling. "I'll pay all expenses," she said. "And I'll write a check out to cash in the amount of three thousand dollars and give you the money as soon as we find Bedelia Morse."
"Three thousand dollars? Lady, are you rich or crazy?"
"I have money," Laura said. "Money's nothing. I want my son back."
"Yeah, I can see that. But I've… like… got a job to go to tomorrow."
"Call in sick. I don't think you're likely to make three thousand dollars over the weekend at Rock City, do you?"
Mark's fingers stroked his beard. He began to pace the room, stealing glances at both Laura and Rose. He stopped to dial the number once more. After a dozen rings, he said, "She must've gone somewhere. Like a trip or something. She could be gone all weekend."
"Three thousand dollars." Laura held up the check with Cash written on it. "Just take me to her house."
Rose cleared her throat and shifted in her seat. "That's a lot of heavy bread, Mark. We need some work on the car."
"Tell me about it." He continued his pacing, his face downcast. In another moment he stopped again. "No pigs? You swear to God, no pigs?"
"I swear."
Mark frowned, caught in a thicket of indecision. He looked at Rose for guidance, but all she could do was shrug her shoulders. It was up to him. "Let me think about it," he said to Laura. "Call me in the morning, about eight o'clock. If I can't reach Didi by then… I'll decide what to do."
Laura knew that was the best she could expect for now. It was almost twelve-thirty, and time to get some sleep if that was possible. She stood up, thanked Mark and Rose for their hospitality, and she took the check with her as she left. She walked out into the cold wind, her body bent against its force but her spine far from broken. Before she went to bed she would get down on her knees and pray. Those words to God – whether heard or unheard – were keeping her from losing her mind. She would pray that David would be safe for another night, and that her nightmare of sirens and snipers would not come true.
Laura got into the BMW and drove away.
The lights stayed on at the Treggs's house. Mark sat in a lotus position on the floor before the silent TV, his eyes closed, praying to his own deity.
5: Reasonable
Saturday night, the seventeenth of February.
Tomorrow, the weeping lady. And Lord Jack, waiting for her and Drummer.
The baby was asleep, swaddled in his blanket on the other bed. The motel, in Secaucus, New Jersey, was called the Cameo Motor Lodge. It had a cramped little kitchenette and a view of a highway, and cracks riddled the ceiling from the vibrations of the trucks hauling freight in and out of New York City. Sometime before eleven, Mary Terror licked a Smiley Face from her sheet of waxed paper, and she kissed Drummer on the cheek and sat in front of the TV.
A monster movie was on. Something about the dead struggling out of their graves to walk among the living. They came out dirty-faced and grinning, their mouths full of fangs and worms. Mary Terror understood their need; she knew the awful silence of the tomb and the smell of rot. She looked at the palms of her hands. They were wet. Scared, she thought. I'm scared about tomorrow. I've changed. Gotten older and heavier. What if he doesn't like the way I look? What if he thinks I'm still blond and lean and I'll see it in his face oh I will I'll see that he doesn't want me and I'll die. No, no. I'm bringing his son to him. Our son. I'm bringing him light in the dark, and he'll say Mary I love you I've always loved you and I've been waiting for you oh so long.
Everything will be cool, she thought. Tomorrow's the day. Two o'clock. Fourteen hours to go. She held her hands up and looked at them. She was trembling a little. I'm freaking, she thought. She saw the moisture on her palms begin to turn red, like blood seeping from her pores. Freaking. Sweating blood. No, no; it's the acid. Hang on, ride it out. A rider on the storm, oh yes…
Someone screamed. The sound jolted Mary. She saw a woman running on the TV, trying to get away from a shambling, half-decayed corpse. The woman, still screaming, stumbled and fell to the ground, and the monster in pursuit flailed on toward the screen.
The television screen cracked with a noise like a pistol going off, and in a shatter of glass the living corpse's head burst from the TV set. Mary watched in a trance of horror and fascination as the rotting thing began to winnow out of the television. Its shoulders jammed, but its body was all bones and sinew, and in another few seconds it pushed on through with a surge of frenetic strength.
The smell of grave dirt and mold was in the room. The living corpse stood up in front of Mary Terror. A few tendrils of long black hair hung from the shriveled skull, and Mary could see the almond-shaped eyes in a face as wrinkled as a dried apple. The mouth stretched open, a noise of whirring air came out that shaped words: "Hello, Mary."
She knew who this was, come to visit from the dead. "Hello, CinCin."
Cold fingers touched her shoulder. She looked to her left, and there stood another creature from the grave, wearing dirt-crusted African amulets. Akitta Washington had dissolved down to a skinny stick figure, and what remained of his once-ebony flesh was now a leprous gray. He held up two bony fingers. "Peace, sister."
"Peace, brother," she answered, and returned the sign.
A third figure was standing in a corner of the room, skeletal face cocked to one side. This person had been a petite woman in life, but in death she had bloated and burst and dark glistening things were leaking from the cavity where her insides used to be. "Mary," she said in an ancient voice. "You bitch, you."
"Hi, Janette," Mary replied. "You look like shit."
"Being dead doesn't do a whole lot for your looks," Janette agreed.
"Listen up!" Akitta said, and he came around the chair to stand beside CinCin. His legs were gray toothpicks, and where his sexual organs had been, small white worms feasted. "You're going there tomorrow. Going to be walking on a fine line, sister. You ever think that maybe the pigs planted that message in the Stone?"
"I thought about it. The pigs didn't know about the weeping lady. Nobody knew but us."
"Toombs knew," Janette said. "Who's to say he didn't tell the pigs?"
"Toombs wouldn't talk. Never."